Steel wire strands and cords have long been used as reinforcing elements for tires, hoses and other flexible composite articles. In the last decade the use of steel wire for tire cord has seen significant growth, particularly in Europe, in belt as well as carcass applications. Typically, a steel tire cord is made by cabling a plurality of drawn steel wires to form a strand or cord. The cabling operation involves laying or bending a plurality of wires or strands about a central axis to result in a strand or cord having the desired twist level. The cabling operation as described results in a product having substantial bending stresses retained, which in turn result in a liveliness or tendency of the strand or cord to kink or curve in a helical, spring-like configuration. The retained bending stresses can also be shown by splaying of the wire ends when the twisted strand or cord is cut. To reduce the retained stresses resulting from the cabling operation the strand or cord is customarily "killed" either by back twisting, "stress relieving", or by mechanically killing the cord. Although back twisting, stress relieving, and mechanical killing of the strand or cord serve to reduce liveliness, these treatments are not done without sacrifice of desirable cord properties. In the case of stress relieving, the strand or cord is heated below the critical (austenitic transformation) range for the given alloy. This treatment results in reducing desirable tensile properties, while desirably reducing bending stresses. Mechanical killing, on the other hand, involves plastic deformation of the live strand or cord by sequentially bending the strand or cord over a plurality of rolls. This treatment typically results in scoring and deforming the shape of the steel wire and reducing bending stresses at the sacrifice of desirable wire properties.